President David Dixson takes the reigns

The first business meeting of the year fell on the 1st day of the new Rotary year so this gave the ideal opportunity to celebrate the handover of President's role from Hugh Allen to David Dixson.

President Hugh Allen opened the meeting with greetings to members, honorary members and guests. He then gave an emotion filled summary of his year in office and gave thanks to the members and officers of the club for their support and encouragement during this transformative year. The Club needed to address a number of issues which were of importance to the Club's future including Finance Reporting, Member Costs and Location of Meetings, all of these had been fulfilled during this year.

Hugh also went on to say what a privilege it had been to serve as President and highlighted some of the key moments in the year that had given him immense pleasure.

Then it was time for Hugh to hand over the jewel of office to our new President, David Dixson. President David then went on to thank Hugh for his year of service and presented a bouquet of roses to Briony Allen in thanks for her support for Hugh and the club during the year.

President David then handed over the jewel of President Elect to Vice President Sue Day. Sue  is the first woman to become President Elect in the 102 years of the club's existence. David congratulated Sue on this achievement and wished her well for the year ahead.

President David then gave an outline of his key goals for the coming year, he wanted to highlight that we need to grow "this great club", a 25% drop in membership over the last years must be reversed. He will focus on the issue of bringing new members into the club. He stated that we must all use our influence in recommending new members as this is often the path that leads to success. David also made it clear that the club's public image is key to attracting new members and that he's prepared to get outside help to look at our public image performance.

President David then presented his personal challenge for the year to raise £5,000 for the Pett Level Independent Lifeboat service by swimming the equivalent of two English Channel crossings during his Presidential year. He intends to kick this odysey off with a photo opportunity on Pett Level Beach with some of the volunteer lifeboat crew.

David then concluded by saying that we all need to be enthusiastic and let people know about our great club and he is honoured to serve as President this year .